MAGIC

The glimmering, corporeally white moonlight of the south flowed down over the rocky cracks in the barren mountains and filled the wide valley with its olive groves like a lake.
The remains of marble columns of the ruined temple glistened like opals, and on the tiles lay a silken blanket of bluish white light, giving the appearance that everything was covered with freshly fallen snow.
The two men walked silently through the sacred site of ancient times until they reached the foundations of an old temple where they sat down.
“This temple,” said one of the two, “was founded by one of us thousands of years ago. For many centuries its priests stood under our guidance…
Later on popular legend had it that one of their gods had been the founder of this shrine.
The place where we are is still today mysterious, yet people in this age do not know its mystery any more …
Wherever one of us in ancient times founded such a temple, he sought a site where certain fluid powers of the earth could successfully be caused to flow in abundance, something which is not possible everywhere on this planet.
Today these sources of fluid powers have long since dried up in most of these places; yet still the powers which were once effective are concentrated in such places as though drawn to them. The powers still follow the same paths which once moved the creator of the shrine to found a temple on this site and to train priests for holy service.
The priests belonging to these temple shrines were in the beginning far from being those ‘deceivers’ they must be regarded as being today, since no one has a sense any more of the mysterious powersenacted in these places by genuine magic, magic the world still knows only in name, and which it has cloaked in fraud and swindle…
There was a truthful and exalted magic; there were magical sites on this earth; indeed, you could still find them now, if you knew how to search.
Yet this ‘search’ is no longer possible for people in the current age, for they have gradually allowed the powers within them to fade which would be necessary for a successful search. – –
Man is more closely attached to this earth’s powers, trusting too much in mere appearances, than he can believe.
Countless powers of this earth would be subordinate to him, if he could develop within himself the might which these powers must obey .....
If one could teach how to develop this inherent might, soon all the world would sit at the feet of such a teacher. –
But the development of this might is linked to an inner growth, and until it has become lucid and clear within man’s innermost being, so that he can see everything he wants to see within himself with his eyes closed, he can neither find the power within himself, nor ever learn to use it.
He has no idea what is being spoken of when he is told about the power within his own being. – – – – –
And if one dares speak about ‘seeing with closed eyes’, no one knows what it is; most believe they have had that ability for ages, because they confuse the patterns created by their imaginations with true introspection. – –
They will never comprehend what it means for everything within to be clear and radiant; they believe that rational lucidity, logically constructed thought, – is this clarity. – – – – –
They still do not suspect that high above this much lauded ‘thinking’ which ends for ever when the human body disintegrates, there is another form of thinking in which thought itself becomes aliveand conscious of itself, so that, detached from all earthly ‘thinking’, it can think its own self. – – – – –

There are curious ‘teachers’ in my country, and they have found their way to you in the west, who would educate their pupils to ‘control their thoughts’. They see salvation solely in this because they have found a faint trace of truth, and have discovered that there is some link here with thought …
If these fools could only comprehend that no man can ever attain the truth in whom living thought, conscious of itself, does not awaken from sleep and become lord and master, then they would see with horror how they have subjected both themselves and others to a torment which has led so many to the edge of madness, if not to complete insanity …
They have their pupils sit still, ‘concentrating’ on a solitary thought in their minds.
Their purpose is for them and their pupils to be able to maintain a state without thought for minutes and longer, and thereby eventually to receive the light of truth.
But all they achieve in this process is a ruining of the nerves and brain within this physical body. – –
‘Experiences’ of a spiritual kind, which they think they have, are never anything other than the results of an unnatural irritation of their physical nerves. – – – ”
“In that case,” interjected the other, “shouldn’t warning rather be given against all ‘concentration of thoughts’ and every attempt to ‘control rational life’?! – ”

But the one who had spoken first interrupted him and said:
“Far from it, my friend!! –
It all depends on what you want to achieve and how this advice is understood! – –
If it is only a question of preventing that ‘thinking’, produced through the mediation of most subtle physical organs, that is, through the brain, and capable of ‘consciousness’ by means of the same organs, from drifting aimlessly, then you may always recommend using every means to gather these ‘thoughts’, which are only reflections of true thought in the infinitely facetted mirror of the brain, into one focal point
Thinking man, who in essence is nothing other than a higher species of ‘animal’, will be able to use this ability to direct the workings of his brain in this way to great benefit.
You should also teach him to accustom ‘the thoughts of his brain’ to obey, so that he will never become their slave. –
He should learn to hold fast to those thoughts which may direct his deeds, but to give no heed to all others. – –
He should know that he will only ruin his nerves, if he seeks to rid himself of barren or destructive thoughts by struggling against them; but that he will easily become their master if he totallyignores them, however much they try to force their way back into his consciousness.
He must know that he can never, unless at his nerves expense, be without thoughts; but it is within his power to devote himself to the thoughts he wants and to let all the unwanted thoughts pass by like pictures which no longer mean anything to him. – – – –
This continual practice, which will gradually become a habit, creates peace and order in thought which the brain needs; this peace and order is the first condition, if man is one day to reach the point of awakening the consciously self-experiencing living original thought from its sleep.
Once he has awoken it within himself, something which amongst tens of thousands hardly anyone manages simply because so few dare awaken it, then all ‘thinking’ of which he like all others was capable, will seem to him as but the shadow of a light whose presence hitherto he hardly suspected in its most distant rays. – – – – – – ”
“Everything you say, oh venerable one,” the other began to say in reply, – “everything you say, I can confirm from my own experience, as gained through your great kindness.
Yet I would be grateful to you, despite everything I have come to know myself, if I could hear from your own lips while we are still physically close, how you would yourself describe in human words the might hidden in man which is continuously passed on to us, that might over secret earthly forces.”
And the sublime one spoke:
“Do not think I have lost the thread of what I am saying!
I merely wanted to show you on this hallowed ground and at this hour the path of words you should follow, if you seek to tell people in the west about that sublime and true magic which you now know yourself, and which they believe is but the spawn of pious deception and common fraud.
Thus I had to make the clear distinction between what men call ‘thinking’ and the living, self-conscious thought which is, in those of us who awaken it, ‘master’ of all masters, as it alone gave us that might through which we can command the secret forces of the earth.
Tell those in the west that they misunderstand this might, – tell them that none of them can attain this power from himself, – that there is only one who has the keys to this might in his hands, to whom we owe it as well, – that we too would not have received it, if the living thought, conscious of itself, within us had not previously awoken from its sleep of millennia, and if it had not achieved in us immortal rule and magnificence! – – – – –
People still believe that this might results from an external activity and requires those who possess it to practise arts which are called ‘magic’ and that their effect is tied to ‘rites’ and ‘ceremonies’.
You should not seek to hide that there is also a type of lower and only temporary mastery of certain secret earthly forces which can be brought about by such kinds of practice, – only, you should also make it abundantly clear that all this has nothing at all in common with that might over earthly forces and thereby over cosmic forces, which can be called the sublime magic of the spirit. – – –
The ‘magic’ which works through external means, through ‘rites’ and ‘ceremonies’, and which is tied to certain external performances, has the same relationship to the magic of the spirit as ‘thought’ which needs the brain to exhibit itself, is to eternal thought conscious of itself and thinking itself. – – –
Try to make it clear to people in the west that the only effective means of the divine magic of the spirit is the will which is no longer ruled by wish, and that this will commands through itself vast spheres of the earth’s secret forces. –
Make it clear to them that we had to bind ourselves closely to eternal laws when we acquired this will without wish within us, and that we can in no way any longer do ‘what we want’ in the way which the man of the earth commonly apprehends his wishing as his will, but that we had to unite ourselves with an eternal will which wills itself within our will without regard to our wishes, should they seek to resist it. – –
Tell the people you teach that we have all subordinated our wishes to that eternal will once and for all, so that our will is free of every wish, acts solely of its own accord in the service of the eternal will, and is most profoundly at one with it…..
They will find it hard to understand you straightaway, for all too often those among whom you work are used to forcing every new teaching into the mould of old teachings until it appears to them ‘intelligible’ in terms of the old teaching.
It is true that you are giving them the oldest spiritual teaching in the world, but you must never forget that elements of this teaching have reached them in every age, and that they always created from these elements teachings which confuse error and truth in a muddled arabesque.
I also do not doubt that many of their newest teachers of ‘ancient wisdom’ would joyfully serve the truth if they could only recognise it and were not caught up in the delusion that they were certain possessors of the truth.
It will be your own task to differentiate yourself most carefully and clearly from such ‘teachers’. As you know, we do not agree at all with your belief, though quite understandable in human terms, that the ones taught by those teachers are best prepared to receive the truth.
If you wish to seek your pupils among those who are so burdened with false knowledge you will do so at your own risk and bearing personal responsibility. –
Although you are now one with us in an organic community of the spirit, we must allow you every personal freedom. However, you alone bear the responsibility in these matters.
If you choose not to follow our advice, it will happen all the same. Your later recognition that we advised you correctly will become a stimulation for you well worth many a disappointment. –
We advise you, – take your teaching to all you can reach, like the rain which gushes down upon fertile fields and upon stony land!
Even in stony deserts seeds of plants await development…
It must be of little concern to you whether you know those individuals who find the truth through your teaching or not. – –
It is your task to reveal the wisdom of the innermost east, so long shrouded and concealed, to people in the west in your own way.
You know that others amongst us, who live permanently in total seclusion, have the task of finding those seedlings in the countries of the west which are now striving for their development, having received the beneficial rain of your teaching!
You must not allow yourself to be led astray by anyone at all into assigning yourself tasks which we, the organic spiritual unity of the exalted community, have not entrusted to you. – – – – –
You must also not allow yourself to be discouraged, if you cannot find any ‘evidence of success’, as a result of your teaching.
You should continue to spread the teaching that is familiar to you; you should always repeat the same teaching in the same or similar words without paying heed to those listening to you or those minded to follow your teaching.
We – as the organic spiritual unity – want you, our brother, to give people in the west the possibility of recognising that those ‘mysteries’, about which the educated among them know from history, are alive even today.
We seek the beginning of a new age of deepest spiritual becoming alive on this earth, and we believe that the peoples of the west will one day share with us the ripe fruits which they were able to grow from the seed we gave them through you …
You know that you as an earthly person can only be the mediator of a wisdom which you would never have gained, if one of those who has helped mankind from the beginning of time had not with conscious will united himself with your spirit, before you were even born as the son of your mother on earth!
We understand that it would have suited you better to keep your wisdom to yourself, and to go quietly your own way on earth. But we must oblige you to teach, even if we make you carry a burden in this way which may be very heavy at times. – –
Teach the western world that magical powers on this earth have not disappeared, that they only await a new humanity so that they can manifest themselves once more.
Teach all those who ask how they can bring back life to the magical pole within them.
Teach them that being prepared to encounter exalted powers, can bring these powers back to life!
Teach them that all claims to higher inner experience are based only on an inner attitude, never on the vehemence of the wish!
Teach them that the message of the spirit can only be received in complete stillness of the soul!
Teach them that their soul’s faculties only manifest themselves to their consciousness to their tiniest extent!
Teach them to depend on nothing other than their own innermost ‘I’ which will automatically attract all the help it needs!
All confidence, so tell them, must be confidence in life, in their own ‘I’, must be self-confidence!
Tell them:
The ‘I’ is the source of all strength given to you!
You will only find yourselves in the ‘I’!

All that is real reflects itself in the ‘I’!
The ‘I’ is the source of all knowledge of ultimate truth and reality!
The ‘I’ is the forum where you will meet all the spirits of infinite existence!
In the ‘I’ is given the power which can learn to master all powers!
The ‘I’ is eternally silent. – –
Those who enter this great silence can find supreme powers in it!
Within the ‘I’ you find the all-encompassing eternal spirit!
Only in the ‘I’ can your living God beget himself in you!
The body of the earth must, however, learn to believe in the eternal ‘I’!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Tell them this too:
No one attains consciousness of his eternal ‘I’ who is unable to forget what he previously was! – – –
‘I’ is: not something, – not an object which might be grasped; not a ‘creature’, – therefore a ‘nothing’; but the nothing which is everything: – – the form of unity for all that is!
You truly only are in this ‘nothing’!
If it is perceived by you as your ‘I’, then you have found everything which is within yourselves!
Consciousness of ‘I’ is the consciousness of carrying the ‘centre’ of all being in oneself. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
In this way teach the people in the western world who entrust themselves to your teaching, and you will guide them to their highest goal.
No one person has in common the same ‘highest goal’ with another.
As different as the stars in the sky in their magnitude are ‘ultimate goals’.
But each man living on this earth can reach, in his own way, that highest goal allotted only to him!
Guide all those who trust you to their highest goals, but warn them against regarding the ‘highest goals’ which only a few in every age can reach, as their own ‘highest goals’.
Tell them that it is enough to reach one’s own ‘highest goal’, but that it brings ruin to strive for another’s ‘highest goal’, even if it towers as high as the sky above one’s own ‘highest goal’.
Thus guide people in the west on straight paths to that light which they still seek on devious paths, since they think they can reach it in no other way!
I am leaving you now in my earthly form, and others from among our brethren will meet and hold dialogues with you in earthly language.
But none will give you any different counsel on your path, and in a short while you will counsel yourself in the same way according to your own counsel. For just as we are one in the spirit, so each one belonging to us will soon find himself of one mind with us all in those things which he himself considers only for himself. – – – – – – – – – – – – – ”

The new day slowly began to break as this advice was imparted, and the first rays of the rising sun were already gilding the mountain peaks.
Deep down in the distance lay the darkest blue of the southern sea.
People now walked along the path which passed by the site of the ruins of the ancient temple. They were leading a mule and waiting for the exalted master.
He embraced his younger brother in parting, mounted the mule and moved off with those who had come to meet him towards a distant destination. The younger man, however, after accompanying the small group of walkers a small part of the way back, turned around with a last farewell and walked in the first rays of the morning sun towards his lodgings, considering the words of his exalted brother in his heart, and ready to act upon them. – – – – – – – – –
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And so ends this ‘Book of Dialogues’ in which I allowed you to be part of the many conversations which impelled me to write these books.
Many years have now passed by since that night in the ruins of that ancient temple; and the one so advised has long ago abandoned any need for further questions…
He has long since become like his brothers in every respect. – – –
Yet the task he was assigned has only just begun to be fulfilled.
May this ‘Book of Dialogues’ help contribute to its complete fulfilment!
May it be of use to you in bringing clarity to many questions! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –